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It's a fine grained stainless steel. Apparently it doesn't get quite as hard as some other steels, and can be slightly tricky (I think?) to get a really good heat treat on it. Lots of people like it quite a lot for kitchen knives if it's treated well.

Some respected custom knife makers use this steel.It is not carbon steel having 13% chrom.It is small carbide which gives it some good characteristics for a kit. knife such as ease of sharpening & ability to take a very sharp edge.This gives similar qualities as carbon blades,but in a stainless alloy.

It's edge holding is acceptable for extended use,but must be sharpened on a whetstone to keep the edge fresh.A lite touch up once blade is trained.

As with any steel Heat Treatment is important.The Artiflex is a relatively inexpensive way to try this steel.It does have good heat treatment.I took off the machine edge on my artiflex,& put a blended polished convex grind.Because of the characteristics of the steel it is easy to rework the edge profile.

Re-read my post and it looks pretty snarky. I didn't mean it as a slight against the OP. I just thought it was funny to read something I wrote which (to me) was so long ago. Also I haven't visited that forum in a long time and I don't think it's ever been all that popular. So it was kind of a blast from the past.